Fall of Flynn: hope or peril?

There are still questions about the resignation of National Security Advisor Mike Flynn following revelations in the Washington Post that he had mislead other members of the administration (and, by extension, the public) about the content of his phone conversations with the Russian ambassador back in December. It is still unclear whether Flynn stepped down of his own volition or was basically fired. (The latter version now seems to be favored by the administration.) But, predictably, Trump is expressing greater outrage over the leaks that resulted in Flynn's fall than the misbehavior they revealed, tweeting: “The real story here is why are there so many illegal leaks coming out of Washington?” Flynn himself echoed that point. Asked by Fox News whether the leaks were "targeted, coordinated and possibly a violation of the law," Flynn responded: "Yes, yes and yes.”

Of course, Flynn's own actions may have violated the Logan Act. And given all Trump's campaign-trail bluster about "locking up" Hillary over her supposedly insecure e-mails, you'd think the administration and its Republican allies would be taking this seriously. And you would hope in vain. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) says he won't open an investigation into Flynn, citing executive privilege (despite the fact that the conversations in question took place before he was appointed to his White House post). But the committee will investigate who leaked the story that led to Flynn's resignation, and why Flynn was being recorded. "I expect for the FBI to tell me what is going on, and they better have a good answer," said Nunes. (The Hill, WP)

Has it really not occurred to these guys that the FBI wasn't tapping Flynn's line but the Russian ambassador's? Could Flynn (the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency!) have really been so innocent as to think the FBI wasn't eavesdropping on the Russian goddam ambassador? Is this arrogance or naiveté? We don't even know.

TYT provides a good overview of what we do know so far. On Dec. 29, , the very day Obama slapped sanctions on Russia over the elections meddling, Flynn called Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak a whopping total of five times. Contrary to his earlier denials, the sanctions were discussed. Flynn seems to have skirted an actual explicit pledge to lift the sanctions, merely saying that relations with Russia would improve under Trump, and leaving it to Kislyak to read between the lines. TYT notes Flynn's long coziness with Russia, recalling that he was paid by the Kremlin to speak at the notorious RT confab in December 2015 (he admitted this in an interview with the Washington Post on Aug. 15 of last year), where he shared a table with Putin at the dinner after his talk.

Former NSA spook John Schindler has a piece in Observer (owned by Trump top advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner) portraying a generalized revolt by the intelligence community against the administration. An (unnamed) Pentagon intelligence official is quoted saying that "since January 20, we've assumed that the Kremlin has ears inside the SITROOM." That's the White House Situation Room, the conference room in the West Wing where the president and his top staffers get intelligence briefings. "There's not much the Russians don't know at this point," the official added in what Schindler calls "wry frustration."

Meanwhile, Flynn has been replaced with another ex-military man, retired Lt. Gen. Joseph K. Kellogg Jr, the NY Times reports. And Flynn's son Michael G. Flynn, after having suspended his Twitter account for excessive indiscretion under probable White House pressure (maybe a first sign that his dad was in trouble), now seems to be back at it, now under the name Michael Flynn Jr.

As for Flynn's veiled promises to Kislyak... the first Russia sanctions have already been lifted. We'll now see if the White House will continue in this trajectory, or if the Flynn affair will prompt an about-face. This could be the beginning of the collapse of the entire administration, with any luck. A more pessimistic reading is it's just the beginning of the inevitable Trump-Putin breach, which holds dangers of its own....

Of course, we already knew that. A month ago, he griped to an eager Fox News that Democrats were hoping the intelligence agencies will "undermine and subvert" the Trump presidency (as if that would be bad thing!). Now he just retweeted (with the usual caveat of "I don't agree with all of it but"...) "national security" wonk Eli Lake's exercrable "The Political Assassination of Michael Flynn" from BloombergView. Trump also tweeted: "Thank you to Eli Lake of The Bloomberg View - 'The NSA & FBI...should not interfere in our politics...and is' Very serious situation for USA" (Note that the quote is garbled to the point of being ungrammatical.) Feeling uncomfortable with your strange bedfellow yet, Greenwald fans?

Greenwald's latest for the The Intercept is entitled "The Leakers Who Exposed Gen. Flynn’s Lie Committed Serious—and Wholly Justified—Felonies." So you might hope that he is actually taking a single-standard position on leaks. But he has to conclude: "It's very possible — I'd say likely — that the motive here was vindictive rather than noble. Whatever else is true, this is a case where the intelligence community, through strategic (and illegal) leaks, destroyed one of its primary adversaries in the Trump White House."

He strangely goes on to say in his final two lines that we should cheer on the leaks anyway. But Greenwald really seems to see a Manichean struggle between the intelligence community or what he calls the "Deep State" and the White House—as if the prior were a monolithic entity. This ignores the fact that Flynn himself is the former chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency. And that James Comey's FBI was and is obviously on Team Trump. This is a struggle within the intelligence community—between those elements that have some respect for what they ostensibly signed up for (protecting the security of a democratic system) and those ready to embrace Trump-fascism. So Greenwald is peddling false equivalism when he tweets:

First, note that this tweet completely contradicts his equivocal cheering on of the leakers in The Intercept. But more to the point... We must ask again: Why is a foremost voice of the "left" legitimizing Trump and warning against "subversion" of his consolidating dictatorship?

Our reading of the essential politics of the Trump administration as a wedding of paleocons and the radical right against the perceieved dominance of the neocon establishment in Washington is made clearer in today's Breitbart piece decrying Bill Kristol's tweet from yestrerday: "Obviously strongly prefer normal democratic and constitutional politics. But if it comes to it, prefer the deep state to the Trump state."

Of course Kristol is making the same error as Greenwald, even if their positions are diametrically opposed: the "deep state" is divided. And if the pro-Trump tendency prevails, we will truly be under a dictatorship.